Several weeks after the eventful apple-butter boiling at the Reist
farm, Aunt Rebecca invited the Reist family to spend a Sunday at her
home.
"I ain't goin', Mom," Philip announced. "I don't like it there. Dare I
stay home with Millie?"
"Mebbe Millie wants to come along," suggested his mother.
"Ach, I guess not this time. Just you go and Phil and I'll stay and
tend the house and feed the chickens and look after things."
"Well, I'm goin'!" spoke up Amanda. "Aunt Rebecca's funny and bossy but
I like to go to her house, it's so little and cute, everything."
"Cute," scoffed the boy. "Everything's cute to a girl. You dare go, I
won't! Last time I was there I picked a few of her honeysuckle flowers
and pulled that stem out o' them to get the drop of honey that's in
each one, and she caught me and slapped my hand--mind you! Guess next
she'll be puttin' up some scare-bees to keep the bees off her flowers.
But say, Manda, if she gives you any of them little red and white
striped peppermint candies like she does still, sneak me a few."
"Humph! You don't go to see her but you want her candy! I'd be ashamed,
Philip Reist!"
"Hush, hush," warned Mrs. Reist. "Next you two'll be fightin', and on a
Sunday, too."
The girl laughed. "Ach, Mom, guess we both got the tempers that goes
with red hair. But it's Sunday, so I'll be good. I'm glad we're goin'
to Aunt Rebecca. That's a nice drive."
Aunt Rebecca lived alone in a cottage at the edge of Landisville, a
beautiful little town several miles from the Reist farm at Crow Hill.
During her husband's life they lived on one of the big farms of
Lancaster County, where she slaved in the manual labor of the great
fields. Many were the hours she spent in the hot sun of the tobacco
fields, riding the planter in the early spring, later hoeing the rich
black soil close to the little young plants, in midsummer finding and
killing the big green tobacco worms and topping and suckering the
plants so that added value might be given the broad, strong leaves.
Then later in the summer she helped the men to thread the harvested
stalks on laths and hang them in the long open shed to dry.
Aunt Rebecca had married Jonas Miller, a rich man. All the years of
their life together on the farm seemed a visible verification of the
old saying, "To him that hath shall be given." A special Providence
seemed to hover over their acres of tobacco. Storms and destructive
hail appeared to roam in a swath just outside their farm. The Jonas
Miller tobacco fields were reputed to be the finest in the whole Garden
Spot county, and the Jonas Miller bank account grew correspondingly
fast. But the bank account, however quickly it increased, failed to
give Jonas Miller and his wife full pleasure, unless, as some say, the
mere knowledge of possession of wealth can bring pleasure to miserly
hearts. For Jonas Miller was, in the vernacular of the Pennsylvania
Dutch, "almighty close." Millie, Reists' hired girl, said," That there
Jonas is too stingy to buy long enough pants for himself. I bet he gets
boys' size because they're cheaper, for the legs o' them always just
come to the top o' his shoes. Whoever lays him out when he's dead once
will have to put pockets in his shroud for sure! And he's made poor
Becky just like him. It ain't in her family to be so near; why, Mrs.
Reist is always givin' somebody something! But mebbe when he dies once
and his wife gets the money in her hand she'll let it fly."